


coin operated boy

by amandaskankovich



Category: Ex Machina (2015)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-19
Updated: 2015-07-19
Packaged: 2018-04-10 04:19:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4376972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amandaskankovich/pseuds/amandaskankovich
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Summary: He cuts into his skin. He waits for blood. He waits and waits and waits. </p><p>AU where Caleb wasn't a real boy after all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	coin operated boy

He cuts into his skin. He waits for blood. He waits and waits and waits.

It doesn’t come.So he pulls away a piece of skin and this hurts, it hurts and he gets a small amount of reassurance from that because he hurts that has to mean–and then there is metal.

Right there underneath.

Shining.

Beautiful.

The scream that comes out of his mouth is a sound he’s never made before.

Not even when he woke up in a hospital bed at 15 years old and found out he was an orphan.

It occurs to him right then that never happened.

The defining moment of his entire life and it wasn’t real.

Ones and zero’s on a screen.

He makes the sound again into his hands.

It’s an animal sound.

Pitiful and devastating.

Far away.

Not real.

Then he laughs.

Laughs.

Laughs.

Then he gags.

*

His key card doesn’t work so he bangs on Nathan’s bedroom door over and over and over.

But then he has flashes of that one model breaking her arms apart in her frustration and rage and he stops himself.

He feels more fragile than he ever has before.

He thinks that he is breakable in a way he never has before. Even when he’d been a crumpled broken boy in a hospital bed.

"You never were." A voice says.

Whose voice?

Who is the voice inside his head when inside his head there are clicks and whirs. Inorganic when there had once been organic.

He doesn’t know anymore what thoughts are his and what thoughts are what a scientist who thinks he’s God wanted him to think.

Caleb had never said that. But Nathan heard what he wanted.

It occurs to him that Nathan will stumble out of bed in the morning.

Hungover.

Smiling.

Caleb wonders if he could reach his hand out and crush his throat.

Does he have that in him now?

*

He goes to Ava.

Where else would he?

*

He wants to tell her everything. But he suddenly goes mute. All he can do is stare at her. She stares back. Puts her hand to the glass.

He wants to tell her how he remembers being six after a rainstorm jumping in puddles over and over until he ends up in one that goes up to his chin.

He remembers losing his virginity at 20. He remembers the song that was playing. Now he remembers that and thinks why did Nathan pick that song? Was it just what was playing on his computer at the time?

When he’d use to think: I’d really loved her. Alex. She was so much fucking cooler than me. I knew it wouldn’t last I was fucking insecure. I hated that she smoked. She hated that I made her feel guilty about it. She had really fucking great taste in movies. I loved her hair. Her smile. Breast. Teeth. Skin. Eyes. Green eyes.

Was she real?

Had she ever existed?

She called me from Toronto last month. Did that conversation even happen?

My parents weren’t real.

That hits him then.

He leans his head against the glass.

“Caleb?” Ava says.

He looks at her, “Did you know?” He asks, “Could you tell?”

Before he asked this her face had mimicked concern. She blinked and that was gone. That illusion of humanity.

But that she doesn’t ask him what he means and feign confusion.

He’s grateful for that.

It occurs to him that he doesn’t even know if he’s the first of the kind for him. Caleb 1.0. But he is luckier. One week ago he’d been outside.

“You shouldn’t be in here.” He says looking at her, “I’ll get you out.” He says.

“And then what happens?” She asks him.

And then?

He pictures smashing Nathan’s skull in. Lighting his body on fire.

He looks at Ava and the room goes red.

And she smiles.


End file.
